Our History

Our History

The Montgomery family have been in business on Ballymoney St since 13 July 1930, when Mark, Tim, Paul and Richard’s grandfather opened his new grocery shop along with Robbie Murdock. In those days they rode to work from Barnish, Kells on a tandem bicycle 8 miles away to open at 7.45am and close at 9.00pm on Friday and Saturday evenings. It was exciting times for them both as they had just finished their apprenticeship in McKeowns a grocery shop on Wellington street. They quickly established themselves as having good quality produce and a reliable service. In a short time they supplemented their business with animal feed which they delivered to most parts of co Antrim.

As the war approached trading became very difficult and it was with their great resilience that they were able to supply local farmers with their needs.

Over the years the business grew and before long a hardware department evolved. For many years this combination proved very successful.

Unfortunately in 1957 the boys grandfather died and not long afterwards Robbie Murdock also passed away.

Steven, the boy’s father, started working part time in the shop when he was 10 years old. After leaving Ballymena Academy in 1967 he progressed to Greenmount agricultural college and started work in Montgomery and Murdock full time a year later. Over the next number of years the business progressed and the hardware became the main business.

In 1977 Steven married June and settled on the home farm. Their 4 boys grew up loving country life and always kept livestock and their animals now supplement their business.

The family was very proud to have Iris montgomery, wife of the late Robert , open their new building known as Montgomerys in 2005. This saw the establishment of Montgomerys Restaurant and Coffeeshop.

2012 was a difficult period of trading for the company, and the building closed for a number of weeks to start afresh in May of that year.

The family is very grateful for the all the support of their customers over the past 85 years